sjlind2002's reviews
269 reviews

I wish I had more to say but almost nothing happened at all during this book.

This, by far, is the most inaccurate in the series. I cannot stress enough that just because you want to deal with certain topics in a historical figures life does not mean the timeline can get loose. You begin by completely changing the structure of the Hamilton family by suggesting they were still without children in 1785, which is bad on its own. 

Then you try to work in some matchmaking with Eliza’s brother who, yes was a bit of a scoundrel and did eventually marry Elizabeth Van Rensselaer. BTW the author is also deeply wrong in her acknowledgments in saying that Johnny went to college, that was their younger brother Philip Jeremiah who himself would elope with his wife without completing school. Johnny just stayed at home till he married Elizabeth then moved up to Saratoga as his wedding present (there’s a lot more to Johnnys and Elizabeth’s match that simply don’t fit her but let’s just say I’m very sad that this horrible depiction is what we had here) 

Furthermore, the matchmaking was very dumb, which is not very profound but it doesn’t deign much more. And while that plot line was so dumb it also led to make Eliza a far less likeable character. She spends all this time trying to set Drayton and Emma up with rich people only to get told off by Emma for meddling, choosing not to apologize in any good or meaningful way, then just pouting about the fact that she still believed the servants choosing other servants was going to ruin them all. Eliza, the real person, no matter how much you’d like to think she’d be a “nice” gal by our standards, would not have cared a bit about the lives of her staff. 

Onto Miriah Reynolds, obviously it needs to be reiterated that this happened in the 1790s, not the 80s. On top of that somehow in this book Hamilton had more chemistry, so to speak, with her than Eliza. He also spent significantly more time with her. I’m never happy about a cheating thing in books but when your lead has more in common or more dialogue with their affair partner than their spouse you have a problem. 

Furthermore, I’d also like to call out the continued choice to ignore the role of slavery in early American life, throughout the entire series. Though the Hamiltons relationship is rather hard to parece out because of shotty sources, it is untenable to imagine an early New York where there is no one enslaved or indentured, and at each mention the author never fails to make her characters say “slavery is bad and I’ve always thought so.” This is a dangerous path to take when by every account Eliza was raised in the household of one of New Yorks largest enslavers, and while Hamilton actively (documented) acted as a middleman in purchasing enslaved people for family members, if not for his own household (somewhat debated) . Pretending slavery doesn’t exist is a bad mark to your credibility as a writer. There are sources out there and just because you want your characters to be seen as nice does not give you liberty to decide to ignore slavery. 

Now that I have rant reviewed all three of these detestable works of fiction, im going to f*ck off an read something better. 

This is somehow worse than the first one in terms of factually being anything like them, don’t get me wrong they have problems but Eliza literally doesn’t feel like an 18th century woman in the slightest. The whole book doesn’t feel like the 18th century but she egregiously plays the modern gal sad that her husband is busy!